When It Comes To Bicycling, You Can Go Home

Modena, NY -- The thing about bicycling is that you can go always go back.

You can't back to relartionships. You can't go back to places to live. You can't go back to jobs.

Inevitably, people evolve and change, so relationships are not good to go back to. And towns are always in flux, with new leaders and buildings and roads and things usually don't seem the same. And jobs and offices offer new dynamics and personalities, and the old job just doesn't seem to have the same feel.

But you can always go back to old bike rides.

The mountains and rivers and ridges are always there. It's inevitable that clouds will always shroud Storm King Mountain in the Hudson Highlands, which were exactly the same this morning as I remember them the last time I churned up the mountain on Route 9W to get from Cornwall to Bear Mountain.

And the Hudson River looked majestic as ever, as I glimpsed the big river from Route 9W and the Bear Mountain Bridge and Route 9D and the Newburgh-Beacon River.

It's why I return to bike these roads because I still get a thrill out of seeing how the land is all knitted together when I pedal on the roads around the mid-Hudson Valley and the Hudson Highlands.

The bicycle gives you a first-hand feel of what it likes to traverse a ridge dividing the Hudson River from Route 32.

I'm in Modena now, about seven miles south of the center of New Paltz, the gateway to the Shawangunks.

I just need a taste of bicycle home cooking. Then, I'll be back in Tampa soon enough.

The bicycle weather Gods have spared me this day. It's drizzled for only 15 minutes or so during the first 80 miles of the ride. And the roads have been wet for only 10 miles or so.

But Saturday?

More rain and more cool weather.